School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jul 27;13(1):12190. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-39459-x.
Attentional research in OCD has focused solely on threat stimuli, assumed to provoke related obsessions and ensuing compulsions. OCD-related stimuli depicting the completion of compulsive acts ("end-states") have yet to be examined. Past research also neglected to explore the reliability of tasks used. Here, attention allocation to both stimuli types was examined. Participants with high (HOC) and low (LOC) levels of obsessive-compulsive symptoms freely viewed three blocks of 30 two-by-two picture matrices, each including two OCD-related (cleaning\checking\ordering) and two neutral pictures, presented for eight seconds, while their gaze was recorded. Participants completed two task versions - one with traditional threat stimuli and one with novel stimuli signaling compulsions end-states. Only the end-state version yielded significant results, showing that HOC participants, compared to LOC participants, spent significantly more time fixating on OCD-related stimuli. Results remained significant after controlling for anxiety, stress, and depression. Task reliability was high. OCD-related stimuli signaling end-states of compulsive behavior should be incorporated in attentional research in OCD.
强迫症的注意研究仅集中在威胁刺激上，这些刺激被认为会引发相关的强迫观念和随之而来的强迫行为。描述强迫行为完成的（“结束状态”）强迫症相关刺激尚未被研究。过去的研究也忽略了对所使用任务的可靠性的探索。在这里，研究人员考察了对这两种刺激类型的注意力分配。高（HOC）和低（LOC）强迫症状水平的参与者自由观看了三个 30 个两乘两图片矩阵的块，每个矩阵包括两个强迫症相关（清洁\检查\排序）和两个中性图片，每个图片呈现 8 秒，同时记录他们的注视。参与者完成了两个任务版本——一个是传统的威胁刺激版本，另一个是表示强迫行为结束状态的新刺激版本。只有结束状态版本产生了显著结果，表明与 LOC 参与者相比，HOC 参与者在强迫症相关刺激上的注视时间明显更长。在控制焦虑、压力和抑郁后，结果仍然显著。任务可靠性很高。应该将表示强迫行为结束状态的强迫症相关刺激纳入强迫症的注意研究中。
